Although it feels to my exhausted, bedraggled body, like the idea and concept has come from the darkest reaches of the mind of a Medieval torturer.

Running 6K at 7am in the morning, when most normal folk are punching the living daylights out of their bedside alarm clocks or at the most strenuous, tipping a box of cereal into a bowl, is hard enough.

But to do it in soft, constantly shifting sand heaps the agony on ten-fold. Pepper the golden sands with muscle stretching, heart pumping circuit exercises at the end and you have the recipe for a morning workout to blow the cobwebs out and help kickstart your day with a bang.

However, your ever keen Stornoway Gazette reporter joined 12-other brave, or should that be crazy, bootcamp members who have enrolled in the six-week intensive training block.

Expertly led by Norrie and Sharon, the Bootcamp team are ably backed up by a dietician and a specialist yoga instructor. Made up of an energetic dose of indoor and outdoor training, including the beach training I have ‘volunteered’ for, each member of the bootcamp will also have regular checks for fitness and physicality.

For more of reporter Eric Mackinnon’s report from the Hebridean Bootcamp see this week’s Stornoway Gazette, out now.